This invention relates to an optical recording medium on which recording data are recorded as interference fringes formed through interference of object light of images corresponding to the recording data with reference light, and a reproduction apparatus and a reproduction method for an optical recording medium of the type described.
A hologram recording medium is conventionally known in which images which can be visually recognized, for example, three-dimensionally or like images are recorded as interference fringes of object light and reference light. For example, Japanese Patent No. 3596174 (hereinafter referred to as Patent Document 1) and Japanese Patent No. 3498878 (hereinafter referred to as Patent Document 2) disclose a holographic stereogram system as a technique of hologram recording wherein a large number of images as a subject copy are successively recorded as rectangular or dot-shaped elementary holograms on a single hologram recording medium. According to the holographic stereogram, since information of a plurality of images obtained by successively picking up images of a subject from observation points different from each other in a transverse direction is successively recorded such that it continues in the transverse direction as rectangular elementary holograms, when an observing person watches the holographic stereogram with both eyes, two-dimensional images which look to the left and right eyes are a little different from each other. Consequently, the observing person feels a parallax, and a three-dimensional image is reproduced.